Gunmen on Friday kidnapped foreign oil workers, including three Americans and four Britons, in Nigeria's unruly southern petroleum-producing region, officials said. Security forces in the region earlier said only six people were kidnapped, including an Indian, but details released by U.S. and British embassy officials put the number at at least seven. The discrepancy couldn't be immediately reconciled, The Associated Press reported. U.S. and British embassy officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing standard agency prohibitions against their names appearing in public. The latest abduction to hit Africa's oil giant took place in southern Bayelsa state, said Joshua Benemesia, a leader of an unarmed, government-funded group that helps provide security in the state. He said only six foreigners were taken, including an Indian. All were aboard a boat owned by a Nigerian oil-services company, he said. On Thursday, five gunmen grabbed a Polish worker heading to his construction project in southern Nigeria and rushed the captive into the lawless oil-rich region's swamps and creeks in a speedboat, officials said. Security forces were trying to make contact with the hostage takers, who grabbed the man on his way to work in the southern city of Warri on Thursday, said Brig. Gen. Lawrence Ngubane, a military commander in the region. The kidnappings are the latest in a run of more than 100 seizures of foreign workers this year in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where all of the crude is pumped in Africa's largest producer. Some 200 foreign workers have been taken since militants stepped up their attacks against the oil companies and government in late 2005, cutting nearly one-third of Nigeria's daily crude production capacity and sending oil prices toward historic highs in oversees markets, according to The Associated Press.
